Buttigieg says Trump and Vance are "demonizing immigrants" to distract from their record

Pete Buttigieg on Thursday slammed former President Donald Trump’s recent false claims that migrants are eating pets, saying it’s a strategy to distract from the Republican presidential nominee’s record.

In recent days, Trump and his allies, including running mate JD Vance, have promoted false claims that Haitian migrants in Ohio are killing and eating family pets. Trump repeated the conspiracy theory during the ABC presidential debate Tuesday night, although the City of Springfield and the local police have said they’ve seen no evidence for the claim.

Buttigieg, who spoke in his personal capacity but serves as transportation secretary in the Biden administration, said that while he thinks it is a distraction technique, “it contributes to this bigger picture of demonizing immigrants.”

Buttigieg praised Vice President Kamala Harris’ debate performance but stressed that groundwork and organizing is more important to win the race.

Trump says there will be no 3rd debate, but Harris says "we owe it to the voters." Here's what you should know

Former President Donald Trump announced Thursday he would not participate in another presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump reiterated this during a campaign rally in Tucson, Arizona, after making the announcement on social media.

Harris’ campaign previously called for another debate. She doubled down on that call during a rally in Charlotte on Thursday, saying “I believe we owe it to the voters to have another debate because this election and what is at stake could not be more important.”

Here are other headlines you should know:

After the debate:

A new poll from Reuters/Ipsos finds little change in the state of the presidential race after Tuesday’s debate between Harris and Trump.

Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance defended Trump’s debate performance, and he didn’t explicitly say if he believes there should be another.

Harris’ campaign raised $47 million in the 24 hours following the vice president’s debate against Trump Tuesday night, according to a campaign official, making it, so far, one of the strongest single fundraising days of the vice president’s campaign.

The Taylor Swift effect:

Taylor Swift’s call to encourage people to register to vote may be having an impact, according to the General Services Administration (GSA), a federal agency that provides government services.

A GSA spokesperson told CNN that “there have been 337,826 visitors to vote.gov referred from the custom URL created and shared by Ms. Swift” as of Wednesday afternoon. It was not immediately clear how many of those visitors registered to vote.

New ads launched:

The Trump campaign is up with a new ad in Pennsylvania warning voters that Harris wants to ban fracking — despite her recent statements to the contrary — seizing on a key issue in the battleground state.

The Harris campaign is launching a new abortion-focused ad Thursday, capitalizing on what officials believe was one of the most pivotal exchanges between Harris and Trump during Tuesday’s presidential debate.

Lawsuits:

New York’s highest court rejected two separate attempts to hear Trump’s appeals on the gag order in his hush money case, according to a decision list posted Thursday.

A judge on Thursday threw out three charges in the sweeping Georgia election subversion case, including two charges that Trump is facing. The decision hasn’t yet been formally applied to Trump because his case has been paused pending appeals.

A nearly four-year-old legal effort by Black voters to convince a court to prevent Trump and the Republican Party from potentially intimidating voters and poll workers is quietly coming back to life as the 2024 election approaches.

Trump campaign proposals:

Vance said he believes Trump’s across-the-board tariff proposals are part of a negotiation tactic and claimed that tariffs are “not always” inflationary.

Asked explicitly if he would consider privatizing the Veterans Affairs health system, Vance said he’s in favor of giving veterans “more optionality.”

Trump on Thursday announced that, if reelected, he would push for legislation that would end taxes on overtime pay.

More headlines to know:

Attorney General Merrick Garland slammed efforts to turn the Justice Department into a “political weapon” during a fiery speech Thursday to department staff and US attorneys from across the country.

Biden donned a Trump cap while visiting a firehouse in Pennsylvania on Wednesday as a unifying gesture while he commemorated the 23rd anniversary of the September 11 attacks, according to press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. Biden’s message, Jean-Pierre said, was “that we needed to go back to that bipartisan unity as a country.”

Federal appeals court denies Trump’s request to delay sentencing in hush money case

A federal appeals court on Thursday denied former President Donald Trump’s effort to delay his sentencing in the criminal hush money case because the state judge overseeing the matter already postponed the date.

Trump asked the New York-based appeals court to get involved after a federal judge denied his request to move the state case to federal court.

While the case was on appeal, New York state Judge Juan Merchan, who oversees the state case, agreed to move Trump’s sentencing, then set for September 18, until after the November presidential election, in part to avoid the appearance of aiding one political party or another.

The former president’s lawyers argued that even with the state adjournment, they wanted the appeals court to step in and put the case on hold until they can fully litigate their challenge to Trump’s conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records following the US Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity this summer.

Fear and frustration in Springfield, Ohio, as the city is drawn into presidential debate

Rose Goute Creole restaurant does a bustling business in Springfield, Ohio, with clientele drawn to its heaping displays of patties and doughnuts, and pots of perfumed rice, fried pork and fish, and golden plantains.

Rosena Jean Louis runs the front, offering free cups of a powerful black coffee and patiently managing a jostling lunch crowd. She and her coworkers are proud of the food they serve, feeding a Haitian expatriate community that has grown quickly in Springfield over the past few years.

“I’m always working at the restaurant,” she told CNN. “Everyone likes the food I cook.”

But when asked about a lie that has taken hold in some corners of the internet that their countrymen are stealing and eating people’s pets, she rolls her eyes in exasperation.

Local officials have repeatedly tried to end the rumor. Springfield officials have told press and city commission meetings that are no credible reports of animal abuse “by individuals within the immigrant community.” The state’s highest Republican official, Gov. Mike DeWine, also dismissed the rumor firmly on Wednesday, noting there was “no evidence of that at all.”

“The internet can be quite crazy sometimes,” DeWine told CBS in an interview. “Mayor Rue of Springfield says, no, there’s no truth in that. They have no evidence of that, at all. So, I think we go with what the mayor says. He knows his city.”

Read more about the debate in Springfield

Trump says he won't participate in another presidential debate

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday said he would not participate in another presidential debate.

Trump debated President Joe Biden in June and Vice President Kamala Harris earlier this week.

Harris’ campaign had called for another debate after she and Trump faced off on ABC on Tuesday.

For now, the Harris campaign says it does not take Donald Trump’s comment at face value.

“He changes his position every day,” a senior adviser said. “I predict there will be another.”

This post has been updated with comment from a senior Harris adviser.

Judge throws out 2 charges Trump faces in the sweeping Georgia election subversion case

A judge on Thursday threw out three charges in the sweeping Georgia election subversion case, including two charges that former President Donald Trump is facing.

The decision hasn’t yet been formally applied to Trump because his case has been paused pending appeals.

In a separate ruling, Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee also upheld the marquee racketeering charge in the case, which Trump is also facing.

These rulings only narrowly went into effect for former Trump lawyer John Eastman and Georgia state Sen. Shawn Still, who were involved in the 2020 fake electors plot. Their cases are not currently paused.

Trump was only named in two of the three charges that McAfee threw out Thursday.

Read more about the case.

White House calls Laura Loomer's social media comments about Harris "racist poison"

The White House on Thursday said recent social media comments from Laura Loomer, a far-right conspiracy theorist who has been spending time with former President Donald Trump, are “repugnant.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said “no leader should ever associate” with someone who spreads “racist poison.”

Jean-Pierre was asked about a tweet Loomer posted on Sunday denigrating Vice President Kamala Harris. Loomer traveled to Tuesday’s presidential debate on Trump’s plane and accompanied the former president on Wednesday as he commemorated the 23rd anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

“No leader should ever associate with someone who spreads this kind of ugliness — this kind of racist poison. That’s what this is — and who continues to fan these types of dangerous and insulting conspiracy theories, like the false notion that the tragic 9/11 attacks were an inside job,” she added, a reference to a video Loomer posted last year that suggested a government conspiracy was responsible for the attacks.

Read more about Loomer’s possible influence on Trump.

Why Harris is heading to North Carolina and Pennsylvania as she looks to build post-debate momentum

Huddled at their campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, the day after the debate, Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign aides determined the event would likely do little to change the overall trajectory of the race.

Their earlier projections that the results in November will amount to a razor-thin margin — likely to be as close or closer than the results in 2020 — remain the same.

Instead, they have developed a plan for the coming days and weeks that will place Harris directly in front of battleground state voters, beginning Thursday in North Carolina and continuing Friday in Pennsylvania.

Those stops for the “New Way Forward” tour aren’t just to any battleground state. They’re the states where voting is already about to get underway. And a campaign official tells CNN that’s no coincidence.

North Carolina, a purple state where Harris and running mate Tim Walz will make two stops Thursday, is racing to reprint and send out mail-in ballots after the state’s Supreme Court ruled Monday to exclude Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has exited the race. About 161,000 people have already requested mail-in ballots, according to the NC Board of Elections. Trump won the state in 2020 by less than half that number of votes.

Next week, Harris will participate in a roundtable with rank-and-file members of the influential Teamsters union, which has been withholding an endorsement for the first time in decades. She will also participate in a Q&A session with members of the National Association of Black Journalists, with whom Trump appeared in late July and remarked that Harris “turned Black.”

The campaign is expecting to rake in millions in new funds, with a Harris-helmed fundraiser in Washington on Saturday, an Oprah-headlined virtual event next week and several other high-dollar events in the works, according to people familiar with them. That cash, the campaign has said, must be quickly tabulated and quickly deployed in states where voters are beginning to head to the ballot box.

In addition to rallies, Harris also plans more local media interviews in swing states and appearances that bring her into direct contact with voters.

Keep reading here about Harris’ campaign plans.

Schumer continues to tie Trump to Project 2025

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer continued on Thursday to tie former President Donald Trump to the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a conservative policy roadmap for a Republican presidential administration.

Trump has said that he is unfamiliar with the project, which Schumer called, “an American nightmare. The most conservative, unhinged and extreme agenda we’ve seen in modern times.”

He added, “Trump’s first term in office wouldn’t hold a candle to the ideas in Project 2025.”

Schumer and several of his Senate Democratic colleagues pointed to parts of the proposal that are “laying the groundwork for a national abortion ban,” and note that it includes a plan to abolish the Department of Education. They also argued that the mortgage policies would “make it harder for Americans to own a home.”

“This is sinister stuff,” said Schumer. “The vast majority of Americans oppose them, yet it is precisely what the hard right is promising the American people if Donald Trump returns to office.”

Pressed on Republicans’ insistence that Trump would not sign a national abortion ban —although Trump did not explicitly rule it out at Tuesday night’s presidential debate – the majority leader said, “look at everything he’s said over the years…No one believes him. Everybody knows what he’s going to do.”

More about Project 2025: The 920-page document was organized by The Heritage Foundation think tank and developed in significant part by people who served in Trump’s administration. Trump has publicly distanced himself from the initiative, calling unspecified Project 2025 ideas “seriously extreme.”

Project 2025’s proposals for right-wing policies and a radical reshaping of the executive branch have become frequent targets of Democratic criticism. A Harris campaign official previously said the campaign has “made a deliberate decision to brand all of Trump’s policies” as “Project 2025,” since they believe “it has stuck with voters.”

Vance says Trump believes in "using tariffs for negotiation"

Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance said he believes former President Donald Trump’s across-the-board tariff proposals are part of a negotiation tactic and claimed that tariffs are “not always” inflationary.

“When people say these tariffs are going to have an effect, Donald Trump already imposed specific tariffs on specific industries. You didn’t see the negative consequences come to light. In fact, what you saw was rising wages and rising take home pay. So, when people say you can’t do this in a narrow way, you can’t do it in a broad-based way, I just think that doesn’t actually fit with reality,” Vance said.

Trump has said that if elected, he would impose tariffs of up to 20% on every foreign import coming into the US, as well as another tariff upward of 60% on all Chinese imports and 10% across-the-board tariff on imports from other nations. He also said he would impose a “100% tariff” on countries that shift away from using the US dollar.

What experts say: Maury Obstfeld, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told CNN that such high levies would raise prices on consumers, especially if they were applied widely — although he cautioned that it’s unclear under what conditions Trump would impose 100% tariffs. Christine McDaniel, a former senior trade official in the George W. Bush administration, called the idea “crazy” and “silly season campaign rhetoric.” Alex Durante, an economist at the Tax Foundation, a right-leaning think tank, told CNN that 100% tariffs would threaten the economy.

Sen. Blumenthal warns Democrats that "our great enemy right now is complacency" after debate

Sen. Richard Blumenthal warned his fellow Democrats not to get complacent after Vice President Kamala Harris’ debate performance — citing Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016.

“I’m deeply concerned that this race is going to be neck and neck right to the finish, and the euphoria that a lot of people are feeling right now, while justified, perhaps, after her tremendous performance in the debate, may lead to complacency or overconfidence,” he told CNN.

Asked how Harris can protect herself against that trend, the Connecticut Democrat continued, “You avoid that trap by sounding the alarm and raising awareness about past complacency — we have only to look at Hillary Clinton to see how complacency and overconfidence can lead to disaster, especially after a good debate.”

Meanwhile: New York appeals court rejects 2 attempts by Trump to lift gag order

New York’s highest court rejected two separate attempts to hear Donald Trump’s appeals on the gag order in his hush money case, according to a decision list posted Thursday.

The gag order, issued by Judge Juan Merchan in the criminal case against Trump, remains in effect, although Merchan lifted portions of it in June. Trump’s attorneys had challenged both the initial gag order and the modified gag order.

The judges wrote that they declined to hear the case about the modified gag order because “no substantial constitutional question is directly involved.”

Trump’s legal team had no immediate comment.

Trump was found guilty earlier this year of 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign. Sentencing in the case has been delayed until late November.

This is one of four criminal cases Trump faces while running again for president.

Former Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzales backs Kamala Harris

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who served under Republican George W. Bush, told CNN News Central that he’s backing Democratic nominee Kamala Harris because he believes she is “most likely to be dedicated to trying to unite America. I don’t see that, that discipline, that willingness in Donald Trump.”

Gonzales said he felt the need to come out publicly against Trump “because of his lack of, as we see it, his lack of support, lack of willingness to abide by the rule of law,” adding that he believes Harris has “demonstrated fidelity to the rule of law.”

“I thought her performance during the convention was good. I thought her performance during the debate was outstanding, quite frankly,” he said.

Gonzalez first announced his support for Harris earlier this morning in a Politico op-ed.

Democratic congresswoman warns 2024 race in Michigan is "just closer than people realize"

Michigan Democratic Rep. Debbie Dingell – who warned about Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016 – said she was “ecstatic” about Tuesday’s debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump until she had a conversation with a local official back home.

“I was ecstatic like every other Democrat as I watched the debate. I thought she got under his skin,” she told Kasie Hunt of Harris on CNN This Morning.

The Michigan Democrat warned that polls showing Harris leading Trump in her home state, a key battleground, may not be accurate.

“I think Michigan is a dead heat,” Dingell explained.

Analysis: Trump allies left doing post-debate cleanup for former president

Ex-President Donald Trump is equivocating over the possibility of a second debate with Kamala Harris after his dud display in their first showdown prompted his team and conservative media allies to mount a frantic cleanup operation.

It’s far too early to say whether the tangle in Philadelphia substantially changed the race as Harris beseeches remaining movable voters in swing states to ditch the chaos of the Trump era. But in the aftermath of Tuesday’s debate, both campaigns are surveying the impact of a critical clash before more than 60 million viewers eight weeks from Election Day.

Trump, who took multiple victory laps following President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance in late June, found himself facing the kind of inquest endured by his erstwhile rival. While the ex-president’s campaign will not suffer the same fate as Biden’s shuttered reelection effort, the debate was the latest sign that Trump is still failing to focus on the new challenges posed by Harris and make his own best case.

The vice president was basking in a fresh jolt of euphoria among Democrats who perceive an oft-doubted political figure growing in stature with every test she passes. Harris’ campaign is also leveraging the endorsement of Taylor Swift, which could open a new seam of interest among the pop megastar’s loyal fanbase.

And her allies are reinforcing the tone of mockery and attempts to goad Trump that emerged at the Democratic National Convention and that the vice president carried into the debate. Philippe Reines, a former Hillary Clinton aide who played Trump in Harris’ debate prep, told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Wednesday that the ex-president has slowed mentally since 2016 and compared him to a “malfunctioning appliance.”

Read Collinson’s full analysis.

Harris campaign to enter more aggressive phase to build momentum after debate

The Harris campaign says it is entering a more aggressive phase as it seeks to build on momentum following the presidential debate and mobilize voters in key battleground states.

Today, Vice President Kamala Harris will kick off her “New Way Forward” tour through swing states, beginning with two rallies in Charlotte and Greensboro, North Carolina. On Friday, Harris will hold events in Johnstown and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, a state she has reiterated she needs to win in November.

The campaign is expected to launch new TV and digital ads featuring key moments from the debate. The day after Harris’ performance, staffers spent hours poring through debate footage to identify key moments to highlight key issues among voters while offering a stark contrast between Trump.

The campaign released its first digital ad yesterday featuring clips from her performance. The ad, titled “Leadership,” aims to emphasize Harris’ message to “chart a new way forward” and spotlights her commitment to bring “a sense of optimism about what we can do,” according to a press release from the campaign.

More media dates: The vice president is expected to hold more media engagements in the coming days, including in local markets through swing states. It comes as she has faced mounting criticism for not holding more interviews. Next week, she will also participate in a discussion with journalists at the National Association of Black Journalists. Harris was unable to attend NABJ’s annual convention due to a prior obligation and opted to reschedule her speaking engagement.

Top Harris surrogates will also have a robust schedule on the trail, with less than two months until Election Day. Today and tomorrow, Gov. Tim Walz will campaign in Michigan and Wisconsin, while Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff attends events in Arizona and Nevada. Minnesota first lady Gwen Walz will travel to Manchester, New Hampshire, and Maine to campaign, including headlining an Educators for Harris-Walz event and visiting a phone bank. The “New Way Forward” tour is also set to include surrogate events to target key voter groups today.